The Silent Lady: A Novel

Summary

Catherine Cookson was one of the world's most beloved writers. Her books have sold millions of copies, and her characters and their stories have captured the imagination of readers around the globe. She passed away in 1998, but luckily for her fans, Cookson left behind several unpublished novels, among them the compelling Silent Lady.

The story begins with a shocking revelation, delivered by a disheveled woman who presents herself at the offices of a respectable law firm in London. At first the receptionist suspects this mysterious woman is a vagrant; the clothes that hang on her frail body are filthy, and she seems unable to speak. When the woman requests to see the firm's senior partner, Alexander Armstrong, she is shown the door -- but when Mr. Armstrong learns the name of his visitor, all the office staff is amazed by his reaction. For Irene Baindor is a woman with a past, and her emergence from obscurity signals the unraveling of a mystery that had baffled the lawyer for twenty-six years.

To those around her, Irene Baindor had been a young woman of class and musical talent, the wife of a wealthy and powerful man, and the mother to a beloved baby boy. But behind closed doors she was a woman with a dangerous husband, a husband who would one day act with such cruelty that Irene would be left without most of her voice and memory. It was then that Irene disappeared. What Irene had been doing, and where she had been, gradually emerges over the following weeks, as the unlikely benefactors who had befriended her step forward to reveal the remarkable life she has led.

Fans of Cookson's novels, with their larger themes of romantic love and class conflict, will be delighted by the mystery and surprise of The Silent Lady. Drawing from her own firsthand experience of working-class life between two world wars and in the 1950s, Cookson once again displays the irresistible plotting, scene-setting, and characterization that have made her an icon of historical and romance fiction.

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The Silent Lady - Catherine Cookson

Catherine

PART ONE

1955

1

The woman put out her hand towards the brass plate to the side of the half-open door. She did not look at the name on the plate, which said, ‘Alexander Armstrong & Son, Solicitors’, but seemed to find support from it by touching its frame while she stood drawing in deep, shuddering breaths.

When she finally straightened herself and stepped through the doorway into a carpeted hall, she made her faltering way towards the desk to the left of her, behind which stood a young woman with her mouth agape.

The receptionist did not greet the visitor with a customary ‘Can I help you, madam?’ or ‘Have you an appointment?’ because, to her, it was instantly evident that this woman was a vagrant and had no business here; so she did not wait for her to speak but said, ‘What d’you want? I ... I think you’ve come to the wrong place.’

When the woman answered, ‘Mis-ter Armstrong,’ the girl was again surprised, this time by the sound of the voice, for it didn’t match the woman’s appearance. Although it was only a husky whisper it had, she recognised, a certain refinement about it.

But the appearance of the woman definitely outweighed the impression her voice made, for the girl now said abruptly, ‘He only sees people by appointment.’

The woman pointed to her chest, then to her eyes and, opening her mouth wide, she brought out three words, ‘He see me.’

‘He’s – he’s very busy.’

Again the head went back and the mouth opened, and the woman said, ‘Mrs Baindor.’

Again the voice made an impression on the receptionist, so much so that she turned quickly and, pushing open the glasspanelled door of her office, she picked up the phone, at the same time watching the woman now turn from the counter and grope her way to a chair that was set near a small table on which stood a vase of flowers.

‘Miss Fairweather?’

‘Yes. What is it?’

‘There’s a ... a person here.’ Her voice was very low.

‘What did you say? Speak up!’

‘I said there’s a person here. She ... she looks like a vagrant but she says Mr Armstrong will see her.’

‘A vagrant! What makes you think she looks like a vagrant?’

‘Well, Miss Fairweather, you want to look at her yourself and see if my opinion is wrong.’ The receptionist was daring to talk like this to Miss Fairweather, but she felt there was something very unusual about this woman.

‘Did you get her name?’

‘Yes, but it sounded funny, like Barndoor.’

‘Barndoor?’

‘That’s what it sounded like.’

At the other end of the phone Miss Fairweather sat pondering. Should she go downstairs and see who this person was who looked like a vagrant, or should she mention the name to Mr Armstrong to see if he knew any such person? She decided on the latter. She tapped on the door that separated her office from that of her employer and when that gentleman raised his head from reading a large parchment set out in front of him and said, ‘What is it?’ she coughed before saying, ‘Miss Manning says there’s an odd-looking person downstairs who says she wants to see you. Apparently she doesn’t seem able to get rid of her. From Miss Manning’s tone the woman appeared to think that you would know her name.’

‘Well, what is it? I mean her name.’

‘It sounded to Miss Manning, so she says, like Barndoor.’

‘What?’

‘Well, that’s what she said . . . Barndoor.’

Miss Fairweather was absolutely astounded at her employer’s reaction to the mention of this name, for he jumped from his seat and shouted, yes, actually shouted aloud, ‘Baindor, woman! Baindor! My God!’

She saw the parchment that he had been dealing with almost slide off the back of the desk as he thrust his chair back, then he ran across the room, almost knocking her over where she stood holding the door half open.

She had been with Mr Armstrong for fifteen years and had never seen him act like this. He was a placid, middle-aged man, strict in a way but always courteous. His excitement touched her. And now she was on the landing watching him almost leaping down the stairs.

When Alexander Armstrong reached the hall he stood for a moment gripping the stanchion post as he looked across at the woman, her body almost doubled up in the chair. He couldn’t believe it: he couldn’t and he wouldn’t until he saw her face.

The woman did not lift her eyes to his until she saw his legs standing before her; then slowly she looked up and he gasped at the sight of her. The face might have been that of her skeleton, with the skin stretched over it, so prominent was the bone formation. Only the eye sockets tended to fall inwards and from them two pale, blood-shot eyes gazed up at him.

Two words seemed to fill Alexander Armstrong’s mind and body and they kept repeating themselves: My God! My God! Then, too, was added the knowledge that sitting here looking at him with those almost dead eyes was a woman for whom he had been searching – at least, for whom he and his business had been searching – for twenty-five years. No, nearly twenty-six.

The words he brought out were in a muttered stammer: ‘M-M-Mrs Baindor.’

She did not answer but made a small movement with her strangely capped head.

He held his arms out to her now, saying, ‘Come upstairs with me, Irene.’

When she made the attempt to rise she fell back into the chair and her body seemed to fold up again. At this he swung round to where Miss Fairweather was standing at the foot of the stairs and yelled at her, ‘Call my son!’ and when she answered shakily, ‘He’s out, Mr Armstrong; you know, on the Fullman case.’

‘Then get Taggart – anybody!’

The chief clerk Taggart’s office was at the other end of the building, and Miss Fairweather ran back up the stairs and along the corridor. Within two minutes Taggart was standing beside his employer, saying, ‘Yes, sir?’

‘Help me to get this lady to my office.’

For a moment Henry Taggart hesitated while he took in the lady’s garb. She was a vagrant, if ever he had seen one in his life. But he did as he was bidden. Not only did he help the weird long-coated bundle to her feet, but, seeing that she was unable to stand and there wasn’t room for three of them on the stairs, he picked up what the boss had called a lady, carried her up the stairs into the main office and laid her, as directed by Alexander, on the leather couch that was placed next to the long window overlooking the square.

Then, again almost shouting at his secretary, Alexander said, ‘Make a cup of tea . . . strong, plenty of sugar.’ From a cupboard he took down off a shelf a brandy flask and poured from it a measure into the silver-capped lid. This he took to the couch and, kneeling down by the woman, he put it to her lips, saying gently, ‘Drink this.’

She made no effort to stop him pouring the liquid into her mouth; but when it hit her throat she coughed and choked and her whole body trembled. He turned and said to the clerk, ‘Go down to the office and get the girl to phone for an ambulance.’

It must have been the sound of the word ‘ambulance’ that roused the woman, brought her head up and a protesting movement from her hand. At this Alexander, bending down to her, said, ‘It’s all right, my dear. It’s all right. Not a big hospital ... I understand. I understand.’

She lay back now and stared at him; then he turned quickly from her and, going to the phone on his table, he rang a number. When, presently, a voice answered him, saying, ‘Beechwood Nursing Home,’ he said curtly, ‘Get me the Matron, quick!’

‘Who’s speaking?’

‘Never mind who’s speaking, get me the Matron quick!’

‘But, sir ... !’

‘I’m sorry. I’m Miss Armstrong’s brother.’

‘Oh. Oh yes, yes,’ came the reply; and then there was silence. As he stood waiting, he turned and looked at the wreckage of a life lying on his couch, and again his mind cried, ‘My God!’

‘What is it, Alex?’ said his sister’s voice.

‘Listen, Glenda. I’m sending you a patient.’

‘You’re not asking if we’ve got any room.’

‘You’d have to make room somewhere. This is important.’

‘I cannot make rooms—’

‘Listen, Glenda. Have you a room?’

‘Yes, as it happens I have, Alex; and may I ask what is up with you?’

‘You’ll know soon enough. Get that room ready; there’ll be an ambulance there shortly and I shall be following it.’

The voice now was soft: ‘What is it, Alex? You sound troubled, very troubled.’

‘You’ll know why in a short time, Glenda. Only tell the staff that there must be no chit-chat about the condition of your new patient. I mean how she appears ... is dressed. For the moment just get that room ready.’ Then, his voice changing, he said, ‘This is a serious business, Glenda, and I can’t believe what I am seeing lying on my office couch. Bye-bye, dear.’

When he put the phone down and turned round, Miss Fairweather was standing with a cup of tea in her hand, looking as if she was afraid to touch the weird bundle lying there. He took the cup from her; then, kneeling down again, he put one hand behind the woman’s head to where the cap affair she was wearing bulged out into a kind of large hairnet, which fell on to her neck. It had been half hidden by the large collar of her worn, discoloured and, in parts, threadbare coat. Lifting her head forward, he said, ‘Drink this, my dear.’

Again she was staring into his face; but now she made no movement of dissent when he put the cup to her lips. After she had taken two gulps of the strong tea and it began to run from the corners of her mouth, he quickly handed the cup and saucer back to Miss Fairweather and, taking a handkerchief from his pocket, he gently dabbed the thin lips.

When he saw her make an effort to speak again, he said softly, ‘It’s all right, my dear. There’ll be plenty of time to talk later.’

But she still continued to stare at him; and what he heard her say now brought his eyes wide, for she murmured, ‘My son . . . tell my son ... He will come.’

He knew he was shaking his head slowly. She thought her son would come to her after all these years? She could know nothing about him; yet her last words ‘He will come’ had been spoken in an assured tone. Poor soul.

There came a tap on the door now; and Taggart stood there, saying, ‘The ambulance is here, sir.’

‘Tell them to bring up a stretcher.’ Alexander turned swiftly to his secretary, saying, ‘Fetch that old travelling rug out of the cupboard.’

Although still amazed, Miss Fairweather was quick, and after taking the rug from her Alexander pulled it open and tucked it about the thin body of the woman, gently lifting her from one side to the other until it overlapped.

The ambulancemen picked up the wrapped body from the couch, making no comment, not even on the woman’s headgear, but asked politely, ‘Where to, sir?’

‘Beechwood Nursing Home.’

His description did not get any further before one of the ambulancemen said, ‘Oh, yes; we know it, sir. Beechwood Nursing Home, Salton Avenue, Longmere Road.’

It was almost two hours later and brother and sister were in the Matron’s private sitting room; and there Glenda Armstrong stood holding the long dark coat up before her, saying, ‘Can you believe it?’ And not waiting for an answer, she went on, ‘I can’t. I remember putting this on her. It was such a beautiful coat and very heavy. I thought that even then, for it was lined to the very cuffs with lambswool. But look now, there is not a vestige of wool left in the lining, just a mere thin skin. And the coat was such a beautiful dark green; made with such thick Melton cloth you couldn’t imagine it wearing out in two lifetimes. Well, it has almost worn out in one, God help her! Where d’you think it has been?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t any idea, but it’s been on the road somewhere. Yet, looking as she did, surely she would have been detected, especially with that hat or whatever it’s supposed to be.’

Glenda now picked up the hat from a chair and said, ‘It was very smart, French, a cross between a turban and a tam-o’-shanter with a brim round it. Look, the brim is still in place.’ She touched the almost bare buckram-shaped rim with her fingertips, then lifted the pouch at the back as she said, ‘She must have had it made for her to fit the bun she wore low down on her neck. Look at the dorothy bag! That’s the same one she had with her when it happened.’ Glenda pointed to the patched handbag lying on the seat of the chair. ‘Everything she owned was in that bag. I remember I made her take her rings with her for she had taken them all off, even the wedding ring; and there was a necklace and a card case.’

Glenda sat down now on the edge of the large chesterfield beside her brother. ‘When we heard nothing from her I always blamed myself for not sending someone with her to Eastbourne. When I put her on the train I said, Now, let me know, won’t you, how things are, and I shall come and see you in a few days or so. And that’s the last I saw of her. Do you remember when you told her husband she had gone to her aunt’s, and he went for you for not seeing that I had obeyed his orders and sent her to Conway House? My God! If ever there was an asylum under the name of rest-home! Yet I would have liked to have pushed her aunt into that place when I got to Eastbourne the next day and she told me that she wouldn’t give her niece house room and had turned her away. She said that Irene’s place was at her husband’s side, and she deserved all she had got for carrying on with other men. Dear Lord in Heaven!’ Glenda now hitched herself on to the cushions as she repeated, ‘Dear Lord! We know now that the poor girl dared not lift her eyes to another man, never mind carry on with him.’ Then she went on, ‘Oh, and the vest or the shift, whatever you like to call it. It was made by old Betsy Briggs. She used to clean for Irene’s father after her mother died and Irene was still at school. It was one of Betsy’s expert pieces, a long, slim, clinging woollen shift. It was more like the sort of dress girls wear today. She had knitted one for Irene’s mother because she was afflicted with a weak chest, and then she made one for Irene. And what d’you think? She still had it on today, or the remnants of it, for although it was clean it was held together not with wool but mending threads of different colours. And on top of it she was wearing what was left of the rose red velvet dress she wore that night at the concert. You remember it?’

‘Yes. Yes, Glenda,’ Alexander said wearily. ‘I remember it. How did you manage to get her undressed?’

‘Without much protest, until we came to the vest. Then her strength was renewed for a time, because she grabbed at it, at least at the waist part. When I reassured her she could keep it by her, but that I must take it off for the present, she allowed us to do so. And when we put it into her hands she grabbed at the middle of it and, slowly, she turned it inside out, and pointed to a small brown-paper-covered package about two inches square. It was pinned to the garment, top and bottom, with safety pins, and she attempted to undo them. After I undid them for her she held on to the package. She held it to her bare chest, then let us take the flimsy woollen garment away from her. She made no resistance when the sister and nurse washed her. The sister said after: It was eerie, like washing a corpse. Yet her body is covered with little blue marks, faint now but which at one time must have been prominent, you know, like the marks left on a miner’s forehead from the coal.’

‘Has she still got the package?’

‘Yes. We left it in her hand, and she seemed to go to sleep. That was until Dr Swan came in. He stood looking down at her where she lay with her hair now in grey plaits each side of her face. I had already put him in the picture because he had attended her – you remember? – all those years ago. At the time, he was a very young man and must have had hundreds of patients through his hands since, yet he remembered her. Dear Lord! he said.

‘It was when he took hold of her wrist that once more she seemed to be given strength, for she pulled her hand away and pressed it on top of the other, which held the little parcel. And although his voice was soft and reassuring when he said, Don’t worry, my dear, I’m not going to hurt you, there was fear in her eyes and her whole body trembled. His examination was brief, and she trembled violently throughout.

‘When we were outside he said, Her chest’s in a bad way, but it’s malnutrition that’ll see her off. She can’t have eaten properly for God knows how long. I’ve never seen a live body like it. Where has she been all these years?

‘I don’t know, I said to him. That’s what we hope to find out. But she has difficulty in speaking. It’s as if she doesn’t want to speak. Anyway, he said he’d call back later and we’d have a talk.’

Musingly, Alexander said now, ‘I wonder what’s in that package? Perhaps it might give us a lead.’

‘Well, we’ll not know until we can take it from her, or she gives it to us, which I can’t see her doing as long as she’s conscious.’

He turned to her and said, ‘You know who her son is, don’t you?’

‘Yes, of course I do. And he’ll have to be told: it’s only right he should be. But how we’re going to do it, and how soon, I don’t know. The latter, I think, will depend on Dr Swan’s opinion, and for the present all we can do is get some food into her. But it’ll have to be slowly.’

Now Alexander rose to his feet, went to the fireplace and put his hands up on the marble mantelpiece. He looked down into the fire as he muttered, ‘I’m shaking. I . . . The last two hours have brought the past rushing back at me as if it had happened yesterday.’ He lifted his head and, turning towards her, he said, ‘D’you think I might have a drink?’

‘Of course; we both need one. Brandy or whisky?’

‘Whisky, please.’

Glenda went into an adjoining room, and brought back with her a tray on which stood a decanter of whisky and two glasses. She poured out a large measure for her brother, a comparatively small one for herself.

After taking two gulps from his glass, Alexander said, ‘I’d better get back to the office and put James in the picture. He, of course, knows nothing about this business; he was only a small boy when it all started.’

‘Yes, I understand you must tell him, but you must also emphasise at the same time that he says not a word about it to anyone. Otherwise it’ll be in the papers by the end of the week.’

His voice was serious as he answered her, ‘Well, Glenda, that goes too for your staff. You must tell them that this must not be talked about, because if a hint of it got round that old scandal would erupt and no matter what the great-I-am did, he would not be able to buy off justice this time, and as much as I would like him to get his deserts there is the son to think about.’

‘Don’t you worry. This won’t be the first secret my girls have kept.’ Then she added, ‘Will you come back to dinner later on?’

‘No. I’m sorry, Glenda, I can’t, but I’ll phone before I go out because it’ll be too late when I get back. All right?’

‘All right; but I don’t expect there’ll be much change in her before then.’

2

It was about an hour later when Miss Fairweather brought in a tray of tea and set it on the end of Mr Alexander’s desk. She looked from him to Mr James and asked, ‘Shall I pour out?’

‘There is no need, Miss Fairweather. We are likely to be here some time yet.’

It was a very stiff secretary who made her exit, and James Armstrong looked at his father and smiled as he said, ‘There goes a disappointed lady. Is she still after your blood?’

‘Don’t be silly, James; she’s a very good secretary.’

‘Yes, but I suspect she thinks she’d make a better wife. Anyway, what’s all this about? I’ve only got to leave the office for a couple of hours and the excitement starts. It never happens when I’m here. Taggart tells me—’

‘Doesn’t matter what Taggart tells you. Now, pay attention. I’ve got rather a long story to tell you and I’m going to start at the beginning. You were a child of six when it happened, but since you’ve come into the firm you’ve had quite a few dealings with the Zephyr Bond, haven’t you?’

‘Yes. Yes, I have. It’s doing very nicely now and—’

‘Yes, yes, I know all about that,’ his father cut him off, ‘but the lady who should have been receiving the interest on that bond for the last twenty-five or twenty-six years or so has never touched a penny of it for the simple reason that I couldn’t find her. There was quite a bit of money spent in trying to trace her but to no avail until this afternoon when a vagrant, and yes, she must have been one for some very long time, came into this office and asked to see me.’

‘Really?’ The word was just a murmur.

‘Yes, really. You know all about the Edward Mortimer Baindor Estate. Well, she was the wife – is still the wife – of that beast of a man. That’s what I say he is, and that’s what I’ve thought of him all these years, and although the affairs of his estate bring us in a good part of our earnings I would have told him to take it with himself to hell many a time if I hadn’t been stopped by some instinct. I cannot put a name to it, except to say I felt that one day I would live to see him made to suffer for all the cruelty he had ladled out to others, and to the woman who came to us today in particular.’

His son made no remark on this, only leant slightly forward in his chair and waited for his father to go on speaking.

‘My father,’ Alexander now went on, ‘took me with him as a young man to Wellbrook Manor, near Weybridge. He was breaking me in to the business at the time and when he received orders to go and see his client – old Edwin, Edward’s father – who was crippled with gout and couldn’t get around, we would make a day of it because my father had an old friend in the village of Well brook called Francis Forrester. He was the schoolmaster. He had taken this poor situation to get his wife away from the city because she had chest trouble. He’d had a very good job in a London school before this. Anyway, they had one daughter called Irene. She was about ten when I first saw her, a very pretty, sweet child. By the way, her mother had been something of a singer until she got this chest trouble, and her child took after her, and it was quite something to hear them singing together. The child went to the village school where she became friends with one Timothy Baxter. He was four years older than Irene, and apparently since the Forresters had come to the village six years before he had taken the little girl under his wing. His father owned a small grocer’s shop in the village and when the boy was fourteen he left school and went to work for his father. His spare time was devoted to what he called his charge, who was Irene. They grew up together like brother and sister – that was, until the First World War broke out in 1914. He was eighteen then, and was only too ready to join up, but it turned out that he was colour blind. Moreover, he had had a nasty fall from his bike when he was younger and it had left him with bouts of migraine. But apparently he wasn’t greatly troubled at being unable to join the Army because what he wanted to do was act. He had a good singing voice and was a natural on the stage. He had appeared in amateur concerts after he had left school and also had joined an amateur theatrical group. I don’t know how it was wangled, but he got himself into a company of actors that set out round the country to entertain the troops.

‘It was about this time that Irene’s mother died and her father was devastated. But he looked after Irene and continued to send her for singing lessons, as his wife had wished, although he knew that his daughter would never make an opera singer. He confided to my father that, thinking the girl wasn’t making any progress under the local singing teacher, he took her into town to one who had been recommended as the best. And after she had been tested the man was quite plain and honest. He said to them both it would be a waste of money to take her any further. She would do well in light musical theatricals and amateur concert singing and such, but she simply didn’t have a big enough voice for anything more ambitious.

‘When she told Timothy this he pooh-poohed the man’s opinion and said she had a lovely voice and that he would do his best to get her work. Her father wasn’t for this, and said so, so she remained at home, keeping house for him and doing light voluntary war work during the next few years. But it was on the day war ended in 1918 that she found him dead in bed. He was clasping a photograph of his wife and by his side was an empty box of pills and on the floor an empty whisky bottle.

‘Since there was now less call for entertaining the troops, Timothy was home. But the war to end all wars had left many people destitute and this included his parents; the war had ruined their little business. When they left the village to join his mother’s sister in the north, he stayed on because, in a way, he still felt responsible for Irene and he could still get acting jobs in London. How they both scraped through, I don’t know, but I am fairly sure it was my father who helped them both financially over this rough patch. I only know for certain that she clung to Timothy, so my father said, not only as a father and brother but also as someone she loved. That he did not feel that way towards her hadn’t, Father said, dawned on her. As far as she was concerned, she would always have him and he would always have her. That was her childish idea until a friend told Timothy he could get him a job in the chorus of a musical if he came up to town at once. Naturally he did so.

‘Anyway, Timothy Baxter did not remain in the chorus for long but got himself a walking-on part. He was a natural actor and had a good voice. The next thing I remember about the whole affair at that stage was that Timothy had got her a part in the chorus of the same musical he was in, so their association continued and life must have been bliss for her. That was until he told her that the main members of the cast had the chance to take their show to America and had offered to take him with them, and of course he couldn’t refuse such a chance. But as soon as possible he would send for her.

‘For the first six months or so they exchanged letters, hers very long, his, I understand, getting briefer and briefer. And then his communications changed to postcards. She was twenty when he went away. She was nearly twenty-two when the communications stopped altogether, and I suppose she was wise enough to know that he must have found someone else. And also I’m sure she must have told herself, as she told me later, that he had never spoken one word of love to her.

‘She herself by then was taking on different jobs during what the actors called resting periods. When she was twenty-three she had a part in an operetta that was getting good reviews. It was a kind of Cinderella story. She was a housemaid and she sang Offenbach’s Barcarolle, Night of stars and night of love fall gently o’er the water. On the stage she suddenly stops and faces the mirror and sings to herself and imagines herself as a great star. Apart from that one solo it was a small part, because it led nowhere in the story, and I often wondered why it was pushed in. Although she sang beautifully her voice really hadn’t the strength to reach the heights the song deserved, yet she was always enthusiastically applauded, until the real star of the show appeared. Anyway it was in that show that Edward Mortimer Baindor, old Edwin’s son, saw her for the first time, and that’s where I come in.’

‘What d’you mean, Father, you come in?’

‘Just what I say. Bear with me and you’ll know why shortly.

‘Well, now, first of all I’m going to go back some years, to the manor house at Wellbrook. This is how my father told it to me, exactly as Edwin told it to him. Edwin sent for his son. Apparently Edward had just come down from Oxford and had planned to go on an extensive holiday abroad to pursue his hobby of archaeology, but the old man had different plans for him. He wanted him at home to carry on the name. There were no other relatives left either on Edwin’s or his wife’s side. He told his son in plain words: What you’ve got to do, he said, is get yourself married; and there’s one ready, if not waiting, for the chance. She is the best bred around here, as good as her horses, I understand, and the Spencer-Moores are at rock bottom financially. Lillian’s father’ll throw her into your lap because there’s money here. She’s three years older than you, but what’s that? You look older, always have done, like myself. And if she can breed as well as she can ride, this house soon should be filled with children.’

‘Yes, word for word. Funny, but there was a kind of understanding between him and my father. It was never to be the same with Edward and me.

‘But anyway, I understand there was a helluva dust-up and Master Edward only succumbed after an ultimatum had been presented to him. What the ultimatum was Father didn’t tell me. I don’t think he knew. I should imagine it was along the lines of his allowance would be cut down to the very minimum if he didn’t do as he was told. Anyway, there was an engagement announced in The Times and six months later there was a very grand wedding. But what neither the father nor the son bargained for was Miss Lillian’s character. In a way she became a match for both of them because she showed them that horses were her priority and nobody on this earth was going to stop her riding. But young Edward did his duty as was expected of him and straight away she became pregnant, only to lose the first baby at three and a half months. Within three years she’d lost the third.

‘Edward banned horses from the stables except the two that were needed for the carriage when she became pregnant again, and he practically became her gaoler. He never left the house for months on end. My father said he had the look on him of a chained and frustrated bull. He was a big man, six foot one and broad with it. Even at that age he looked like his father, though he had a violent temper, and was prone to wild bursts of anger. He had none of his father’s understanding or, at times, kindness. And it would seem he was by now more